Spy Games

by Amanda Clover

  “Ah, Miss Vinke, yes, this might work,” he said. “But it must be a date very soon. We go out tonight.”

  “How about Friday?” I suggested. “I am just settling in and I don’t think I could have much fun if I have to be ready for a hot date with a cute guy from the office.”

  “Cute guy?” He grinned again. “Uh, yes, not today. But Friday is too far. We will go on date together in three days. On Wednesday. You come back to my place. We have good time.”

  Mr. Liu put his hand on my knee and slid his fingers just inside my skirt. I smacked his hand away, giggling.

  “Oh, Mr. Liu! You’re so bold!” I slid off his desk and escaped his reach in a whirl of my skirt. “I can’t wait to go out with you!”

  I blew him a kiss over my shoulder, grabbed my ID badge off his desk, and slipped out of the door of his office. Three days? That didn’t leave me much time to complete my mission. I had not even met Elizabeth Chen yet. I would have to be aggressive with her. I hoped she would appreciate the direct approach.

  Finding Dr. Chen was easy. I had studied the floor plan of the building and knew exactly where her lab was located. She was in charge of several other researchers, but Mrs. Temple had described her as a “hands-on type” and not much of a manager. A young man greeted me in a small area just outside the lab for dressing in a lab coat, shoe coverings, eye protection, and a hair net. He was not very friendly and stared at me as I put on each of these items.

  “She is waiting for you,” he explained in English with very little accent. “You are late.”

  “I know, I got held up at personnel,” I said with an apologetic smile.

  “Unacceptable,” said the man.

  The climate control lab opened through a lock with a hiss and I entered a large quiet room with stark white light and various pieces of scientific equipment. Mrs. Temple had assured me I would not really have to know my job, but I still felt overwhelmed, like I had just faked my way into being an astronaut on a rocket launch. There were several researchers working at various lab stations, but the mean guy led me straight to Dr. Chen.

  The man guiding me called out to her softly in Chinese. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled when she saw me. I was struck by her beauty. Her hair was brown, which was unusual for a Chinese woman, and her large eyes were made even larger by her glasses. I felt drawn into them and before she even spoke I wanted to cradle her cheek in one hand and kiss her lips. I admit, looking at those pictures of her I had fantasized about doing just that.

  “Ah, Emily, welcome,” she said, her accent American. She turned for a moment and said, “Peter, I can handle things from here.”

  The jerk who greeted me bowed his head slightly and departed. She watched him go before turning to me.

  “Peter is one of my top researchers. He is from the Chengdu Academy of Science, top of his class, and he very much resents you being here.” She gave me a pat on the arm. “But he’ll get over it.”

  “Good,” I said, looking relieved. “I don’t want everybody to hate me.”

  “No, no they won’t. I was just studying proteins for the Y-66 samples. Would you like to help me sequence them?”

  “Um, yes, sure,” I said, stepping beside her. I picked up the tubes containing the samples and tried to figure out what to do, but she saw I was getting things wrong almost immediately and reached in to help me.

  “You probably have a different procedure in your lab,” she said, her fingers brushing against mine as she took the samples from me.

  “Um, yeah, but mostly I’m just super nervous,” I chuckled, blushing with real embarrassment. “I, um, I kind of idolize you, Dr. Chen. And… I might have a bit of a crush on you as well.”

  She raised an eyebrow when I said that latter part, but I had to take the chance to be immediately forward with her.

  “I am flattered,” she said reaching past me, but brushing her shoulder against mine, “But I am just a normal biologist, I promise. Nothing too amazing about me.”

  I fluttered my lashes and took in her slender figure mostly hidden by her white lab coat. She smiled, but it seemed more confused than flattered.

  “Here, watch, Emily,” she said. “I will show you how it is done.”

  My first attempt at flirting rebuffed, I tried to follow what she was doing so that I could help her and actually do my job. The work was interesting, but nerve-wracking because I had to spend most of my energy pretending to know what I was doing. I think Dr. Chen saw through my act enough to know I was out of my depth, but she was too kind to tell me to my face.

  “Why don’t we have a talk,” she suggested. “At lunch.”

  Sitting across from her in the cafeteria, I was struck by how stupid this whole plan had been. Like I was just going to walk into a giant Chinese lab and seduce some top scientist. Me, Emily Vinke, a teenage cheerleader from California. The audacity of it made me a bit angry at Mrs. Temple.

  Dr. Chen leaned towards me over her bowl of steaming noodles. She glanced left and then right before she spoke.

  “I know why you are here,” she said.

  “To help… help with research,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten into a knot.

  “You are with Mrs. Pryce’s company,” she said. “They sent you to recruit me.”

  “N-no,” I said. “I never—“

  She held up a hand, glancing around again.

  “I knew when I accepted you onto my team,” she said. “No girl as pretty as you would be a microbiologist.”

  “Oh, no, I… I… that’s not fair,” I said, feeling as if I was falling down a hole. The sensation was so real that I held onto the arms of the chair just to be certain I was not plunging to my doom. “I worked hard to get to where I am.”

  “I want to work for Mrs. Pryce,” said Dr. Chen. “That is why I let you onto my team. But Peter… he is a party loyalist. He will report me if he thinks I am trying to leave the company. I could go to jail for defecting.”

  “But you have dual citizenship,” I pointed out, remembering that her mother was American and her father was Chinese.

  “I have lived in China for fifteen years,” she said. “But you are right, if I can get out, I can stay out. The Chinese officials are not like they were about leaving the country, most people can come and go, but not me. I am a valuable asset.”

  I stared at her, waiting for her to continue, but then I realized she was waiting for me.

  “Oh, um, okay,” I said, thinking about a more direct version of the plan that Mrs. Temple had worked out with me. “Well, I didn’t know you knew about me, so I was supposed to seduce you and convince you to—“

  “Really?” She sat back in her chair. “Well, I didn’t know Mrs. Pryce was so devious. She certainly knows my type.”

  “Ah,” I blushed a little, “then I take you back to my hotel and convince you to come with me. We have a jet waiting. We leave the country and you are in America in twelve hours. New life and everything.”

  “So what do we do next?” She asked.

  “We proceed with the plan,” I suggested. “On an accelerated timetable. We go out on a date, make it seem like we are falling in love, then tomorrow we will go back to my hotel and we will get you out of the country.”

  “But it will all just be an act,” she said.

  “Right, we won’t really be going on a date or having, you know, um, relations in the hotel,” I said.

  She played with her straw with her tongue and as she took a drink of her tea she looked me over, seeming to appraise me for the first time.

  “Where did they find you, Emily Vinke, if that is really your name?”

  “It’s my name,” I said. “They found me at Peach Valley High School. I’m a cheerleader.”

  The widening of her eyes and the simultaneous curl of her lips into a smile told me that she liked what she heard.

  First Date

  We played it up for Peter Cheung. He glared at me as I kanoodled with Dr. Chen throughout the afternoon. She kept
touching my arm and leaning against me, no doubt driving the young man crazy with jealousy. I was pretty sure he had a crush on Dr. Chen in addition to his professional envy, so seeing her rub up against me in the lab was probably making him borderline homicidal. Even some of the other young men and women in the lab seemed surprised by how closely Dr. Chen was working with me.

  I made sure several of them could hear when I said, “You mean, like go out on a date?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Dr. Chen, glancing around as if she didn’t want everyone to hear what we were saying. “I think you are delightful, Emily. I would like to get to know you better.”

  Peter glowered at us. Dr. Chen giggled with me and helped me clean up the samples we had been working on. As she finished up for the day, she packed up a laptop and slung it over her shoulder.

  “I will meet you tonight at the restaurant,” she said. “Seven o’clock. Do you think you can find it?”

  “I think I’ll be able to find the restaurant that looks like a 1950s American diner in the middle of Beijing, yes,” I said.

  Everything was going perfectly, or so it seemed, right up until I was making my way through the security checkpoint on my way out of the building. I was almost to the spot where gloved security guards check everyone’s bags when I felt a hand close tightly around my bicep and pull me out of line. My heart fell as I found myself face-to-face with Jin Liu. And he did not look happy.

  “Emily Vinke,” he said, loudly enough for others in line to hear, “you must come with me.”

  He dragged me a bit roughly into his office and pushed me through the door. He slammed the office door behind me and jabbed a finger into my chest.

  “You promise me date Wednesday,” he said. “Now I see you are going on date tonight with Dr. Chen?”

  I glanced at his computer and was horrified to see security footage from the lab. It seemed my plan to convince everyone in the lab that Dr. Chen and I had experienced love at first sight was working a bit too well.

  “Um, well, it just sort of happened?” I offered.

  “You insult me,” said Mr. Liu. “You will not go out on date tonight with me. But you will go out on date with her? I think you do not really like me, Emily Vinke.”

  “Oh, no, I do,” I lied. “You are so handsome. It’s just… I knew I had that date planned with you and I didn’t want to schedule it then so I had to schedule it for tonight. So it’s just about scheduling.”

  “But you go out with her, what if you like her and do not want to go out with me?” I could see that underneath his ridiculous outrage he was genuinely stung by what I had done.

  “Oh, Mr. Liu,” I said, patting his arms. “You’re so handsome and, um, proactive, that I am sure I will have a great time with you.”

  “You have great time with me?” A smile quirked his lips. I continued to rub his arms, which seemed to embolden him. “Maybe we have great time right now.”

  He moved suddenly, grabbing my hips and smashing a wet kiss against my lips. His tongue thrust at my mouth like a viper striking. I barely managed to pull my mouth away from him. Worse, as he pulled me against him, I could feel his hard little penis pressing inside his trousers. I resisted the urge to scream as I pushed him away.

  “Ahhh… Mr. Liu, um, not today,” I said. “It has been a very stressful day and I am tired. I wouldn’t enjoy, um, having a great time.”

  “Oh, please, Emily,” he said. “I want to do it. Let us do it now.”

  He tried to grab for me again and I pushed him away. Despite his slight size advantage, I was clearly stronger than him. He tried to come in again for another kiss and I pushed him away emphatically.

  “No! Not today,” I said, straightening my dress. “Wednesday.”

  “Not soon enough,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

  “I, um, can’t do that,” I said.

  “Tomorrow,” he insisted. “Or I report false identity.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. Things were getting much more complicated, but at least he let me out of his office. I hurried back to the security checkpoint, received a fairly invasive pat down and search of my purse, and then I was permitted to leave. I flagged down a taxi.

  “Beijing Grand Imperial,” I said. “As quick as you can get there.”

  I arrived back at the hotel, rushed to my room, and I threw my arms around Mrs. Temple and began to cry.

  “Oh, sweetie, was it that bad?” She said, pulling me against her bosom and holding me tight in her arms. My tears soaked her blouse as I wept.

  “Yes,” I moaned. “It started bad and it went downhill.”

  I told her everything, from Mr. Liu, to Peter, to the fact that Dr. Chen knew I was sent by Mrs. Pryce. Mrs. Temple listened sympathetically, making all the right sounds and saying just enough to ease me back from becoming hysterical.

  “You were amazing,” she said. “You handled everything perfectly. And don’t worry about Mr. Liu, with the way you stepped up our schedule, we’ll get you out of there before you have to go on any date with him.”

  “Oh, thank god,” I said with relief. “He is so gross and overbearing.”

  “But you liked Dr. Chen?” Mrs. Temple asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I mean, sure, I barely know her, but she seemed really nice and fun,” I shrugged. “Nice enough to go on a date with her tonight.”

  “She knows what you are here for,” said Mrs. Temple, caressing my cheek. “You don’t have to do anything with her. Just make it look convincing in case anyone is following you or watching you.”

  “Is that a danger?” I asked, surprised.

  “It is a risk.” She pulled me in for another hug, rubbing her hands up and down my back. “But let it all happen naturally. You don’t have to work out details with her, just get her back to the hotel tomorrow night. I can take things from there.”

  “Got it,” I said, feeling relief.

  “Now then,” she curled a finger under my chin and made me look into her eyes, “let’s get you ready for your hot date tonight.”

  I think Mrs. Temple enjoyed dressing me up like I was her Barbie doll. She had been out shopping and made me try on ten different outfits. I wasn’t sure why she put me in garters and a sheer scarlet bra and panty set, I wasn’t planning to get undressed for Dr. Chen, but it felt nice to have her hands on my body. I moaned as she cinched the bum-hugging panties up to my waist.

  “Now that I have all of them on you, I want to take them all off again,” she growled in my ear.

  “There isn’t time,” I murmured.

  “Right, I still have to do your makeup and hair and get you in this dress,” she said, holding up a plastic-wrapped red halter dress on a hanger.

  The red halter dress cinched tight around my waist with a cloth belt and was made from a material that clung to my body, my perky breasts in particular, making me feel like Marilyn Monroe. It was short and low cut, but not indecent and not in a way that showed off bra straps or panty lines. Paired with candy red stiletto heels it was probably the sexiest outfit I had ever worn. I did a turn in front of the mirror, laughing at how amazing my legs looked as the dress bounced up my thighs.

  “You picked something amazing,” I said, admiring myself in the mirror.

  “I sure did,” said Mrs. Temple, gazing into my eyes.

  Having her do my hair and makeup was even more intimate than having her put me in lingerie. She went heavy with the makeup in a garish retro style, giving me blue eye shadow, heavy liner, glossy red lips and a generous amount of blush.

  “Your skin is so amazing,” she said as she finished spreading the rouge on my cheeks. “I hate hiding it under this, but it works with the outfit.”

  “I’ll have to remember to take it off after my date or I’m going to wake up to a big smear on my pillow,” I said.

  “I will remind you,” promised Mrs. Temple. “Now, give me a hug. No kiss, I don’t want to have to redo your lipstick. I’ve already called a taxi for you and it’s waiting to take you out.
”

  “Oh, god,” I laughed, giving her a hug. “I’m so nervous.”

  “Just relax and have fun,” said Mrs. Temple. “All you have to do is get her back to the hotel tomorrow night.”

  Butterflies were frolicking in my tummy the whole drive over to Retro Rockets. As I had hoped, it was easy to spot, with a huge neon rocket sign and a bustling diner straight out of Archie Comics that was all chrome and neon. The waiters and waitresses wore period outfits with name tags with American names like “Chip” and “Betty” and the clientele was loud and young. Dr. Chen was already waiting for me at a corner booth.

  “Wow,” I murmured as we made eye contact. She was gorgeous, wearing her brown hair with bangs and a high ponytail tied with pink ribbon. The pink bodice and skirt she was wearing looked like they could have been from a prom in the ’50s, although I doubt any high school girl could pull off the look like she was.

  “Oh, Emily,” she said, rising to greet me. “You look gorgeous.”

  We kissed each other on the cheeks and sat down beside each other in the booth.

  “You know, I looked you up on the Internet and I found pictures of you in your cheerleading uniform. Very fetching, Emily. I was half-hoping you would wear that.”

  I glanced around and saw that more than one of the waitresses was dresses as a cheerleader.

  “I think I might have blended in with my surroundings a bit too much,” I said. “Someone would have tried to order a drink from me.”

  “So how did you wind up doing this?” She asked. “High school girl in California, a cheerleader, comes to China to seduce a scientist. How did they recruit you for this?”

  “I fell in love,” I said, realizing my feelings as I spoke them aloud. “And the woman I fell in love with needed me to do this for her.”

  “How far were you willing to take it?” She asked. “I mean, before you knew that I already understood who you were working for and wanted out of my job here.”

  “Honestly?” I asked and she nodded. “After getting a good look at you I was willing to go all the way.”

  “Oh, I’m flattered,” she said, clasping her breast. “But what would this woman who you fell in love with say about you ‘going all the way’ with me?”